Manchester United

It’s Sunday and I was just watching the sports reports while surfing financial crises. A trivia question only for people who do not know the answer and PROMISE to simply guess. The answer is easy if you know it and equally easy to find if you research it, so please don’t spoil the guesses.

What corporate logo is on the front of the jerseys of Cristiano Ronaldo and the other Manchester United players? (Yes, we get European soccer on many Toronto sports news reports.)

Why do you say European Soccer when you mean English football? Please be precise or should I say ‘say what you mean’? Everyone who saw Man U lose 2-1 to Liverpool knows the answer. I’ll not say the name of the flop adverised so as to not spoil it for others.
Regards

I saw the name written on the ribbons that we decorating a championship cup. So it isn’t only their jerseys that they sell. I can only say I was very surprised that they would agree to adorn their championship with a commercial name

This was an easy question for readers of the Telegraph on September 16th, article titled:
Manchester United confident XXXXXX sponsorship deal will survive Wall Street uncertaintyhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/

I’m English, the language you speak is named after me. What ever I call something is English because I’m English. If you want to call it something else thats fine but its not English. Also liverpool beat Everton 2-0.
Regards

West Ham United had the logo XL on the front of their shirts. XL were a cheap holiday airline that went belly up a few weeks ago in one of the early manifestations of the credit crunch. They had to hastily patch their shirts.

Newcastle United are sponsored by Northern Rock. One of the first banks nationalised in the current crisis over here.

Clubs make a lot of money selling this season’s shirts to their supporters, so followers of some clubs could be paying out a bit this season.

English. “the language you speak is named after me”. Eh? I thocht is wis named efter the Angles.

[The name of England is derived from the names of early German tribes who invaded England. They were known as the Angles and the Saxons. Over time, the land became known as the land of the Angles or Angleland — England.]

English. “the language you speak is named after me”. Eh? I thocht it wis named efter the Angles.

[The name of England is derived from the names of early German tribes who invaded England. They were known as the Angles and the Saxons. Over time, the land became known as the land of the Angles or Angleland — England.]

Apologies for giving the right answer (#2). I didn’t read it properly. But anyway, you’re asking a question to solicit wrong answers? That is the opposite of what this blog is about: taking wrong answers and asking the right questions….

Stoke’s Liam Lawrence is an injury doubt for his side’s weekend meeting with Portsmouth after tripping over his pet dog.

Some more freak footballing injuries:
– Milan Rapaic missed several games for Hajduk Split after sticking a boarding pass in his eye at the airport.
– Dave Beasant was kept out by a foot injury caused by a falling jar of salad cream.
– Darren Barnard injured a knee ligament after slipping on an errant pee left by his dog on the kitchen floor.
TEAMtalk / Eurosport

In Italy it is all much more simple: Football is football (in Italian it is “giuoco calcio”, meaning “kicking game”); the one played in America is American football (“football americano”); and Rugby Union is rugby (Rugby League is not played here – anyway they are called respectively: rugby or “rugby a 15”, XV players rugby; and “rugby a 13”, XIII players rugby).
Other kinds of football, from Gaelic to Australian one, are hardly even known here.
I do not know who started to call it “soccer”: who knows? Anyway the right name is Football, as the first association was the F.A.=Football Association (England), and the World association is F.I.F.A.=Federation Internationale de Football Association.

I do not know who started to call it “soccer”: who knows? Anyway the right name is Football, as the first association was the F.A.=Football Association (England), and the World association is F.I.F.A.=Federation Internationale de Football Association.

Yes, the Brits are very lazy with long words. For example, “Cholmondly” is pronounced “Chumly”, “Magdelen College” is pronounced “Maudlin…”, and Lindum Colinium” (latin for tree-covered hill) became “Lincoln”.

Tim Daw (#49)
Of course, football is the oldest of these sports. “Rugger” is a derivative game, called Rugby Football to differentiate it from regular football. American Football is a derivative of Rugger (ever wondered why the score is called a “touchdown”?), with the forward pass added. Then again, I believe that “Canadian Football” is a derivative of American Football.

A slight correction: The forward pass is about the fourth most important distinction between American football and Rugby. Quoting from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

“American Rugby [i.e., football] differs from the English game, because in the scrimmage the men are lined up opposite each other, and, although separated by the length of the ball, are engaged in a constant man-to-man contest, and also in that a system of “interference” is allowed. Furthermore, a player in the American game is put “on side” when a kicked ball strikes the ground; and forward passing, i.e. throwing the ball toward the opponents’ goal, is permissible under certain restrictions.”

[This article gives a truly marvelous depiction of the early years of college football. Unfortunately, the free on-line version at http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Football seems to be missing the diagrams.]

Re: jc-at-play (#52),
Hardly the fourth most-important, just because it was mentioned fourth. The forward pass is clearly the most significant difference between the games, as is immediately apparent in watching the two games. It has become the primary method of gaining significant yardage.

The blocking by linemen is a change, but not so very different from the scrum of forwards (or the loose ruck) in Rugby, and who has ever heard of a case where the onside mechanism you quote has played any role in the American game?

Interestingly, the drop-kick goal used in Rugby is still on the books in the American game, but is hardly ever used.

I was thinking primarily of how American football historically developed from Rugby, rather than comparing the nature of the two as they are today. The very earliest versions of American football essentially were basically just Rugby, with blocking and interference made legal – already a major distinction between the two games, which made the American game much more violent than Rugby. The next major development (due primarily to Walter Camp) was the “principle of possession of the ball” (rather than having a scrum), which quickly led to the idea of a line of scrimmage to separate offense from defense before the snap. It was these three changes from Rugby that led to a distinctive American game – the forward pass played little role until decades later.

That’s very interesting — a rivalry between “soccer” and “rugger” already here in N. America in 1873.

It makes me wonder about where Rugby League fits in with the N. American experience. R. League is/was played with 13 men (I think) and has/had a restart after a tackle like American football (tho, without a huddle). I wonder if the Rugby played by McGill was more like R. League than R. Union. The League/Union (pro/amateur) schism in England seems to have occurred around 1890 or so, after the McGill/Harvard game you discuss.

the “principle of possession of the ball” (rather than having a scrum), which quickly led to the idea of a line of scrimmage to separate offense from defense before the snap

This feature is also present in Rugby League, without a huddle. The ‘snap’ or restart is just the man last in possession heeling the ball back to a teammate. It is interesting to speculate whether the RL Brits got it from the US or vice-versa.

At http://www.rl1908.com/History/1906.htm they say “Aptly, the decision by the Northern Union (English Rugby League) in 1906 to introduce the 13-a-side and play-the-ball rules, …”
This is some 25-30 years after American football had adopted “possession of the ball”.

To bring about “All Blacks style rugby” on a weekly basis amongst their own club footballers, the NU reduced the number of players on each team from 15 to 13, to create more space for attacking rugby. They also introduced a second reform to mimic the All Blacks preference to avoid scrums – the NU introduced the play-the-ball (in effect a quickly formed and highly visible/open two-man scrum).

This suggests the change was almost complete elimination of the tight scrum due to the NZ influences, but there may have been influence from N. America not mentioned in that article.

By the way have you seen the gritty movie This Sporting Life with Richard Harris? Some good scenes of RL there.

Then again, I believe that “Canadian Football” is a derivative of American Football.

It is the otehr way round – in a way

From Wikipedia — Harvard imports the Canadian game from McGill

On October 19, 1873, representatives from Yale, Columbia, Princeton, and Rutgers met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City to codify the first set of intercollegiate football rules. Before this meeting, each school had its own set of rules and games were usually played using the home team’s own particular code. At this meeting, a list of rules, based more on soccer than on rugby, was drawn up for intercollegiate football games.[5]

Harvard, which played the “Boston game”, a version of football that allowed carrying, refused to attend this rules conference and continued to play under its own code. While Harvard’s voluntary absence from the meeting made it hard for them to schedule games against other American universities, it agreed to a challenge to play McGill University, from Montreal, in a two-game series. The McGill team traveled to Cambridge to meet Harvard in a two-game series. On May 14, 1874, the first game, played under “Boston” rules, was won by Harvard with a score of 3–0. The next day, the two teams played rugby to a scoreless tie.[5]
The Rutgers College football team of 1882, wearing uniforms typical of the period.
The Rutgers College football team of 1882, wearing uniforms typical of the period.

Harvard quickly took a liking to the rugby game, and its use of the try which, until that time, was not used in American football. In late 1874, the Harvard team traveled to Montréal to play McGill in rugby, and won by three touchdowns. A year later, on June 4, 1875, Harvard faced Tufts University in the first game between two American colleges played under rules similar to the McGill/Harvard contest, which was won by Tufts 1–0.[9] The first edition of The Game—the annual contest between Harvard and Yale—was played on November 13, 1875, under a modified set of rugby rules known as “The Concessionary Rules”. Yale lost 4–0, but found that it too preferred the rugby style game. Spectators from Princeton carried the game back home, where it also became popular.[5]

Until this time, Harvard had been playing a game that today would be considered very similar to what we call soccer football. McGill arrived in Cambridge several days prior to the game and practised each day. The Harvard team was surprised when the McGill players kicked the ball and subsequently ran with it under their arms. The Harvard captain pointed out politely that this violated a basic rule of American football. The McGill captain replied that it did not violate any rule of the Canadian game. When asked “What game do you play?” Roger replied, “Rugby.” They then managed to agree to play the forthcoming games with half-Canadian, half-American rules.

The following day a notice appeared in the Harvard University paper: “The McGill University Football Club will meet the Harvard Football Club on Wednesday and Thursday, May 13th and 14th. The game probably will be called at 3 o’clock. Admittance 50 cents. The proceeds will be donated to the entertainment of our visitors from Montreal.”

Early in the first half, the Harvard team so enjoyed running with the ball that they agreed to play the remainder of the game with Canadian rules, which stipulated that the ball could be picked up and carried. Harvard normally played with 15 players, but McGill could only field 11 athletes (the number fielded in the present game of American football). The first game was won by Harvard 3 to 0 and the game played on the following day ended in a scoreless tie. Harvard liked the McGill game so much that it adopted the downs as well as field goals. These rule changes, which included tackling, led inevitably to the physical contact of our present-day collision sport. In the fall of 1875, Harvard challenged Yale to a match and suggested the use of a set of rules combining soccer and rugby, such as Harvard had learned from its Canadian rival the previous year

The original British football game is more like Rugby than the effete Soccer – in places such as Hallaton small barrels, called bottles just to confuse, are fought over in ancient games.

There are virtually no rules to the bottle-kicking. Each bottle is tossed in the air three times, signaling the start of the competition. Each team tries to move the bottles, on a best-of-three basis, across two streams one mile (1.6 km) apart, by any means possible.
The contest is a rough one, with teams fighting to move the bottles over such obstacles as ditches, hedges, and barbed wire. Broken bones are not unheard-of, and emergency services are generally on standby.
The bottle-kicking scrums are the highlight of a full day of merrymaking by the residents of both villages. Many participants have several pints before joining in, and people join and leave the scrum as they please, often for some quick refreshment with family and friends.
After the game, participants and spectators return to the village. Those players who put in an especially good effort (for example, carrying a barrel across the goal stream or holding on to a barrel for quite some time) are helped up onto the top of the ten-foot-tall Buttercross, and the opened bottle is passed up for them to drink from before being passed around the crowd.
The festive day normally draws to a close with participants and spectators retiring to pub for drink and banter.

Now that is the sort of game that Empire builders should play, not prancing around manicured lawns in polyester shirts falling screaming to the ground anytime someone touches their precious locks….

I would be curious to know, from Steve or another, why Canada teams were never successfull in football nor rugby: let’s take USA and Australia; main US sports are American football, baseball (softball), basketball, hockey and maybe volleyball, but they got good level (on a World average) football and rugby team; Australia always had one of the best Rugby teams of the entire World, and in the last years they have a good football team too, despite having their own national games like Australian football.

Anyway, all the World should be gratefull to Anglosaxons countries for having invented almost all modern team sports (is anyone here who plays cricket and can explain me its score rules?).

Re: Filippo Turturici (#61),
A run is scored when both batsmen out on the field safely swap places. A ground ball over the boundary (‘ground-rule double’ in baseball) is 4 runs, and a fly ball over the boundary (‘home run’) is 6 runs. Either batsman can be thrown out when trying to score a run, but they don’t have to run after the ball is hit, unlike baseball. The one actually batting can be caught out, bowled out (ball hits his wicket), or LBW (protecting his wicket with his leg, instead of his bat). Ten outs complete an inning.